Chris Christie failed to a win a single delegate in his quest for the
Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and garnered less than 1% of the votes cast in the GOP primary. He then left the New Jersey governor’s mansion with a 14% approval rating.
Let Me Finish, his bombshell of a book, could just as easily have been titled Everybody Hates Chris.
In time for the second anniversary of
Donald Trump’s inauguration, Christie drops a dollop of revenge, chilled to malevolent perfection,
Jared Kushner his primary target. Like most tell-alls, Let Me Finish is an exercise in score-settling, albeit one written from the realm of a dystopic presidency.
But what sets Let Me Finish apart is that it is authored by an elected official whom Trump offered several cabinet-levels positions – just not the ones Christie coveted, like attorney general. Christie was frequently, but not always, in the room where it happened. And so, Let Me Finish is a self-serving, fascinating and informative read.
From the get-go Kushner is the bane of Christie’s political existence. In his opening pages, Christie recalls how Steve Bannon came to fire him as the head of the transition, and in the process Christie extracted a confession that Bannon was only doing Kushner’s bidding.
“The kid’s been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here,” said Bannon.
Long story short, Christie, a former federal prosecutor under George W Bush, sent Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, to prison more than a decade ago for a 14-month stint. Coincidentally, that saga also involves witness tampering, tax evasion, a prostitute, a camera and a brother-in-law, all of which Kushner thought was a “family matter that should have been kept away from federal authorities”, relegated instead to the province of rabbis and beth dins.
Kushner repeatedly stuck a dagger in Christie’s ambitions and Let Me Finish is Christie’s revenge. With the assistance of Ellis Henican, a veteran of Newsday and talk radio, Christie paints a portrait of Kushner as callow, smarmy, entitled and way over his skis. Kushner appears lacking in judgment even as he is cosseted by his family’s wealth and shielded by his father-in-law’s title. Said differently, if Kushner were not married to the boss’s daughter, he would not be anywhere near the Oval Office or still in possession of a security clearance.
Christie lays at Kushner’s feet blame for the hiring and firing of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, and the firing of the FBI director James Comey, and thereby Trump’s ensuing legal woes. In Christie’s telling, he advised Trump to either fire Comey at the outset or be prepared to keep him. That did not happen.
Instead, Robert Mueller tortures Trump by day and Comey’s ghost torments him by night. Meanwhile, Trump’s White House tenure has been reduced to a mom and pop family business, complete with two sets of gilded books and a full-time special counsel.
Kushner is not the only person with a bullseye on his back. Christie dings a whole cast of characters. He chivies Jeff Sessions, blasts Paul Manafort and brings the hammer down on Gen Flynn, whom he labels as a “Russian lackey and future federal felon” … a train wreck from beginning to end … a slow-motion car crash”.
Yet while Christie pours his bile on those who surround Trump, he seeks to leave the president unscathed and mostly succeeds. Critical of the initial iteration of the administration’s travel ban, Christie blames Trump’s aides and his absence from transition. In other words, had Christie been allowed to stay, Trump would have hit the ground running. Perhaps, and then only to a point. Trump is chaos incarnate.
Let Me Finish also recalls how Christie, then federal prosecutor for New Jersey, first met Trump. It was a match initiated by Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a judge on the US court of appeals for the third circuit, which encompasses New Jersey, home of Trump’s bankrupt casinos.
“Chris … would you be willing to have dinner with my little brother?” Barry asked.
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“Judge … I’ll have dinner with your brother,” Christie replied. A relationship was born.
As to be expected, Christie omits inconvenient details. Describing his appearance on Trump’s shortlist of vice-presidential picks, Christie lets it be known he had also been considered as a running mate by Mitt Romney in 2012. Nowhere does Christie mention that his earlier vice-presidential gambit ran aground after he was unable to quell the reservations held by Romney’s vetting team.
Likewise, Christie writes of how Steven A Cohen – an inspiration for the cable television series Billions – was his strongest backer in 2016. But Let Me Finish fails to refer to Cohen’s hedge fund, SAC, being convicted of insider trading or Cohen himself being disciplined by the SEC.
Throughout, Christie conveys a misplaced sense of being put upon. Unfortunately, victimhood does not suit him, not after Bridgegate or Beachgate, the time Christie and family hung out on a closed beach during a state government shutdown.
In the end, Let Me Finish is a tale of Christie’s willingness to dance with the devil and turn a blind eye when needed. He never convincingly explains why he thought Kushner would let bygones be bygones, or why he concluded that Trump was constitutionally capable of faithfully discharging the obligations of office.
Claiming “the president was ill served by poor advice” and observing that he is surrounded by “amateurs , grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons” rings tinny. It elides how Trump got to where he got and why Christie felt compelled be part of the circus he now seems to abhor. This is what sour grapes sounds like.